Finally, some progress...

[tomzarbo]

Most impressive, Tom.

I envy your tenacious efforts as well as your copious clamp collection.

Almost all of them HFT clamps, to my surprise, I haven't had one fail yet!

Nice work! That's an interesting project too. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Thanks, me too. I should put up a poll to see how many people think I'll actually finish these. I'm not completely sure which way I would vote at this point.

Real leather or nothing!!!!! Just kidding Tom, I think the color combo is spot on. Give veneer tape a try next time, I think you'll like it.

Well, I'm going to look into it, the problem is... the 3-4 oz. (very thin) leather that I'd need to cover these with is really kind of expensive. I can see this leather business easily costing more than the entire project, twice over. I will try veneer tape next time I have a seam on finish veneer, I'm convinced of what it can do, just need to order some up next project. Since this will be covered up, I just went with tape.

Those side inserts look cool, but man, they are going to be some work!

My hesitation in doing these in gloss black is that any little dings or scuffs show up really bad. All the wood veneer projects I've done basically still look new, though they have a nick or ding here and there... it's hidden fairly well. Gloss black hides nothing. I could go with an ebony dye on veneer and then do the normal poly thing over that so I would still have a black finish, and a shine, but not have to necessarily deal with the pitfalls of a black lacquer finish. I've done that before with the 'RePas' subwoofer system I built for some friends a few years back...
The "REPAS" Subwoofer (REference Passive Alignment Subwoofer) - Techtalk Speaker Building, Audio, Video Discussion Forum (parts-express.com)
it wasn't as nice a a black lacquer finish, but much more 'daily durable' if you know what I mean.

Things to think about...

TomZ

[ugly woofer]

Real leather or nothing!!!!! Just kidding Tom, I think the color combo is spot on. Give veneer tape a try next time, I think you'll like it.

[Liberator of Magic Smoke]

Nice work! That's an interesting project too. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

[Steve Lee]

Most impressive, Tom.

I envy your tenacious efforts as well as your copious clamp collection.

[tomzarbo]

Here is an idea of my wife's preferred color scheme:




She is thinking a high gloss black with dark maroon or brown leather inserts on the sides. And when I say leather, I mean a simulated leather, not that 'Rich Corinthian Leather' that Riccardo Montoban was trying to sell older Chrysler cars with.

TomZ

[tomzarbo]

The front of these cabinets have their 1/16" Oak veneer applied and trimmed, now to glue the top pieces.

Since the top is not too deep, I only had to use two pieces of veneer, taped together with blue painters tape at the seam. I also used blue painters tape to roughly keep the veneer in place until clamping commenced.



Again, I used a fair amount of glue, rolled on... then let it sit for several minutes as I positioned everything before bearing down on the clamps. The blue paint keeps the glue from running and making a mess of things. It can also make routing the veneer to trim it kind of difficult too.



Four layers of 1/8" HDF per side glued up with Tightbond 2 wood glue for a grand total of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle ligh----- Um, sorry, wrong Christmas time story.... that's four layers of 1/8" HDF each equaling 1/2" per side. That end grain is what I'm trying to hide with this perpendicular hardwood veneer application

The two cauls running from front to back have sandpaper glued to the face boards so they will be unlikely to slip as the top clamps are tightened down.



I used a 1/4" thick piece of cork against the veneer, and a 1/8" piece of HDF to apply the pressure evenly to the panel through the three cauls. I did the center of the curve first, then the front and back so the panel is always in tension.

No major pressure here while clamping, just enough to see the gap disappear and watch the glue start to squeeze out, then I turn until I start to feel a bit of resistance, full stop. Too much pressure can cause waviness if you crank down too hard in one place, and it just squeezes the glue out.

Tomorrow, I can unclamp and do the other cabinet. Soon I'll be applying finish veneer and routering driver openings. My wife is thinking black on the main cabinet body with brown or dark beige on the leather inserts. It will be going against a white section of wainscotting, so maybe that would look good. I was thinking bubinga for the main body and black leather on the inserts. I'll have to do a simulation and see which looks right to our eyes. She usually has good ideas with veneer and colors.

TomZ

[tomzarbo]

Things went well with the veneer. It’s glued down nicely.



More to come.

[tomzarbo]

That didn't go too badly.




I did end up going with a 1/4" layer of cork underneath the 1/8" HDF panels. I spaced out the cauls to where it looked like the clamping pressure was fairly good and consistent. Glue squeeze-out is a decent indicator of how things are going clamp-wise, at least in my experience. I went with a good coat of Titebond 2 rolled on both surfaces and let it soak in for a couple minutes before bearing down on any clamps.

That curved piece in the first pic covered with sandpaper... that's a curved piece covered with sandpaper. ;) ... it's a piece of 3" roundover with some 180 grit glued and stapled to it for sanding convex curves on the front of these speakers. Also works as a handy and grippy clamp caul to keep it from sliding around.

Oh, forgot to take a pic, but I blue painters taped the individual pieces of 1/16" veneer together pulling the tape just a bit... it helps it stay together with no gaps for glue to squeeze out of whilst positioning and such. This was the widest pieces of veneer I could find easily. I've gotten it at one foot widths or close to that in the past but this was all I could find at the moment, I'd guess it's 7" wide or so. Should work fine, just a bit more fiddling with the tape is all.

Here's a close-up of the arrangement used...


The cork evens out the pressure and actually resists the curve a bit even; it squishes down more where it's clamped and where it's not, it still provides nice pressure to keep the 1/16" oak veneer pressed down. The 1/8" HDF really helps distribute the forces over a larger area.

I'll do the other one in a few days Lord willing. Then the tops.

Then... the biggie...I need to start figuring out how to accomplish the cutting of the fabric for the side panels, joining them together, and the French stitching and such.

More stuff I've never done before! Wahoo!!! Gotta love this hobby!

TomZ

[tomzarbo]

Finished gluing up the other two side inserts the other day. Thankfully that went well. I'm still amazed when I pull two thin, glued-up pieces of 1/8" HDF out of a bent form and apply some pressure to the panel... it's SO strong that way.

Now I'm preparing the 1/16" Red Oak veneer sheets to glue to the front and top of the cabinets. I cut them on the band saw which always has the blade pulling down to minimize any splintering of the wood. It's prone to cracking at this thickness.



I've done this several times before and it's always a tricky operation as you have to create enough pressure to get the veneer formed to the curve of the cabinet, but using just wood cauls to do this creates high pressure areas and other areas with no real pressure at all, which isn't what you want.



for this procedure I have to create lots of smaller pieces to get the grain on the veneer going perpendicular to the length of the end grain on the MDF sides so it can add some resistance to the movement of the side panels. I've incorporated 1/4" cork with good success and may do that again this time depending on how a dry fit goes. I'll tape the veneer pieces together so it acts as one piece. It will likely be a combination of cork, 1/8" HDF and some curved cauls for the bottom tapered section as that takes a bit of pressure to lay flat... and a few layers of 1/8" HDF clamped with cauls for the rest of the cabinet. I'll start the clamping at the base at the bottom bend, and work my way towards the top to even out the pressure without 'pulling' the veneer.

Should be fun!

Hey, if past dating convention holds true, it's probably only 236 Days until MWAF 2021... it'll be here before you know it!

TomZ

[tomzarbo]

Forgot to add.... the 1/8" HDF is a bit delicate, I dropped one on the cement floor when I took the clamps off, and dinged a corner. I had to open up and shoot some glue in the layers and clamp that for a few hours to get it hardened up again. It's better than new now, but I'll be more careful next time!

[tomzarbo]

The panels are form-fitting and came out real nice. The almost perfectly follow the curve of the cabinets.



Here are a few shots of how the leather will wrap around the outer 1/8" panel...



The 1/4" recess should allow me to fold the material over and glue it securely to the panel without any bulges pushing the panel away from making full contact with the cabinet.

And a better look at the curve on the panels...



Took these with my iPod. Came out much better.
I'll clean off my camera lens again to be sure, I think it just doesn't take very good pics, though. Maybe all that brown just throws it off. Or maybe it's me.

Yeah, lots of holes in these. They're really light because of it, though. I don't think even my feeble back will have any issues moving these things around when finished. I'm starting to get excited. Just need to get the 1/16" Red Oak veneer on the top and front and I'll be ready to start veneering the good stuff on.

TomZ

[wogg]

Camera tip: Check the cleanliness of your lens. It's super easy to plop a fingerprint on the phone's camera lens that will result in all blurry photos. Not sure what phone you've got, but it should easily outperform an iPad camera.

Looking good man! I applaud your curvy shapes, more fabrication work than I'd like to do.

[Steve Lee]

Do they REALLY smell like Swiss Cheese, Tom?

HAHAHAHA!

Your shop space and project is inspirational, man - thanks for posting.

[tomzarbo]

I had a few days off this past weekend, and I was able to get the cabinets patched up with some of my usual HDF dust and Titebond 2 mixture. Once I belt- then hand-sanded those spots smooth, I set about to try and glue up the two panels that will make up the leather-covered pieces for the sides of each cabinet.



This was a bit tricky as clamping curves doesn't always work well, but using some angled cauls and some double-sided sandpaper pieces, I was able to get everything to stay put while the glue dried.



I'll take the clamps off tomorrow probably and do the two panels for the other side.

I threw two staples in each outer panel near the top to hold the two pieces together and lined up while I clamped them to the carcass.







Sorry every one of my pictures seems to be blurry for some reason. I should start using my ipod for pics again, my camera just sucks for this.

These two 1/8" panels glue to each other in the same shape as the side, but are not actually glued to the sides yet. That's what the wax paper is for... to keep the pieces from accidentally bonding to the carcass. I added some paper and cardboard to the base of the cabinet before I applied the panels to glue to allow for a little spring-back after the panels come off of the carcass.

The idea is to wrap the leather (faux leather cloth) around the larger panel and tuck-and-glue it around that in the small space where the inner panel is slightly smaller. This finished panel will be glued to the main enclosure after everything is basically finished. Sorry, this is hard to describe and my pics don't really explain things well, it will be more clear once I get these pieces off and temporarily covered with some material, it will be obvious what I mean then.

Still ruminating color/veneer choices, but I'm leaning towards waterfall bubinga for the main speaker body, and a black/textured leather for the inserts.

TomZ

[davidB]

Not a bad idea, Tom.
The bearings in a band saw are meant for low friction at high speed, not static loads.
Pure radial, fewer balls in cages, they make less heat and do not destroy themselves - in use.